Google: Product chief, valley veteran Jonathan Rosenberg to step down

Jonathan Rosenberg is photographed in his office at Google in Mountain View on April, 4, 2011. Rosenberg is the Senior Vice President, Product Management at Google. He oversees the design and creation of all Google products. (Gary Reyes/ Mercury News)

Larry Page's first day on the job as Google's (GOOG) CEO on Monday came with the most significant change in years in the makeup of the company's tightknit senior management.

Jonathan Rosenberg, who built the product-management teams that developed products such as the Chrome browser and Android smartphone operating system, and who was a mentor to the company's emerging crop of senior managers, said Monday that he plans to step down in coming months.

Page had asked his senior executives to make long-term, multiyear commitments to remain at the company. Rosenberg said in an interview with the Mercury News that he decided he could not make that commitment, given his long-held plans to leave the company around the time his daughter goes to college in 2013. Google did not immediately name a successor, but news of Rosenberg's departure led to speculation that Page could bring other changes to senior management.

"There is a new CEO," said Karsten Weide, an analyst for the research firm IDC, "so he's going to clean up a little bit."

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Rosenberg, 49, joined Google in 2002 after stints at Apple (AAPL) and the now-defunct broadband company Excite@Home. As a slightly older executive who already had management experience at several Silicon Valley companies when he joined Google, Rosenberg was a mentor for upcoming Google executives, including current YouTube chief Salar Kamangar; head of advertising Susan Wojcicki; and Marissa Mayer, who heads the key area of serving ads and information based on a person's location. When hired, all of them were in their 20s and had scant real-world management knowledge.

Rosenberg is a member of the executive committee that makes Google's strategic decisions, and he is frequently cited as among the most powerful people in the company. The news of his departure, which he shared in an internal memo titled "9 Short Years," was an emotional moment for the executives he had tutored.

"What you see now in the valley, at Google and outside of Google, are a lot of people who got hired first because of the standards and the practices that Jonathan set up for Google, and who went through the basics of how to be a product manager in 'the Jonathan school,' " Kamangar said Monday. "You see these folks in leadership positions in many startups outside of Google, and within Google."

Wojcicki recalled the impact, on both her and a sick Googler, when Rosenberg once insisted they both go visit the seriously ill employee in the hospital. "I feel like my management style will always be a result of him being my manager for the past eight years," she said.

Rosenberg plans to take some time off, starting this summer, before returning to Google in a consulting role. Besides spending more time with his wife and family, Rosenberg said another focus in the months ahead would be co-writing a book with departing CEO Eric Schmidt about the values, rules and creation of Google's management culture.

Page praised Rosenberg, saying in a statement: "We tried to hire Jonathan multiple times because he was the only person we could imagine doing the job. It's lucky we were so persistent because he's built an amazing team -- hiring great people, who've created amazing products that have benefited over a billion users around the world."

Rosenberg's departure points to another challenge Page faces as he tries to reboot Google's management structure: Many of the company's senior managers, who arrived before Google's hugely successful IPO in 2004, may have little financial need to work.

"You have to motivate them entirely with incentives, so it's an interesting challenge," said Greg Sterling, an editor with SearchEngineLand.com, a website that follows the search industry.

While there's no reason to doubt that Rosenberg has personal reasons for stepping down, Sterling said that "it's not clear whether he was now perceived to be less necessary in some new, flatter organization they are creating, or whether he didn't like the direction the new leadership was going -- but I'm sure there was something more going on than meets the eye."

Rosenberg denied that his departure is related to the faster-moving, more nimble startup culture Page is trying to instill at Google as it competes with Facebook and other younger social-networking and social media companies.

"We're obviously going through a transition here," he said. "Larry is stepping into the role of CEO. And I think it was important to him that he establish and build around an executive team that intended to be here for many, many years."

Google recently rewarded Rosenberg with a $1.7 million bonus, as well as $5 million in equity, according to a securities filing. Still, Ken Auletta, who reported extensively within Google for his book "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It," said Page may welcome Rosenberg's departure.

"Jonathan has sway over much of the management systems at Google. Did he come to exemplify the bureaucracy Larry Page condemns?" Auletta asked. "I don't know, but I suspect the answer is yes."

Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/swiftstories.

Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/swiftstories.